Any PHP based software can be run over a web-server. The most famous of them is Apache-the webserver used in around 75% of the websites. For running most of these PHP applications you need a webserver and a database for storing the data. Database is not required in all the cases. Some softwares use flat files to store data, but such apps ae very few. The webserver we will be using will be Apache2 and database software will be MySQL5. You need a PHP translator for running PHP scripts. All these can be installed just by installing WAMP which stands for Windows-Apache-MySQL-PHP or LAMP which stands for Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP. The choice depends whether you are running Windows or Linux.
To install WAMP check this post. Click Here
To install LAMP check this post. Click Here
Apache is a webserver whose work is to accept connections and provide you the page which you intend to open. e.g. You want to open a page abc.php , then you ask the webserver to provide you this page. webserver fetches this page from the hard disk, executes it and returns the result to you. The concept is quite simple.
Next lets move on to PHP translator. Every high level language needs a translator to convert it to low level language which the computer can understand. The translator is a generic term. C has a translator which is called *compiler*. PHP does not have a compiler. Instead it has a interpreter. When the php pages are executed over apache the php interpreter is called into service.
Next and last is MySQL. This is the far and most simple system software. It work is just to fetch the data which has been requested when the php scripts are being executed. You need to connect to this software using a username and password to gain authorization. This method prevents misuse and theft of highly critical data. A database can have multiple users, each of them maybe assigned databases exclusively or shared.
Whenever you go to install any php software, you can be asked some server information. They can be:
Database Host: Enter localhost in this field. localhost is the hostname for the IP 127.0.0.1 . It means the database software is on the same computer on which apache is running.
Database User: The username which you need to connect to you database. You can create a new user. All database have a root user which is the super-administrator.
Database Password: Enter you password for the user you provided. The default installation of WAMP has a blank password for root user. Means a string of zero length which is equal to leaving the field blank. For LAMP, you have to set the root password at the time of installation.
Your email Id: Just enter the email id for your installation or admin user. This may not be useful for installation which have been done locally as you cannot send mails from your computer (you dont have an SMTP server running).
Most of the PHP apps coming these days are very simple to install, only place where people get stuck up are these infos.
You can try installing a few PHP apps like MediaWiki, phpBB 3, Wordpress. If you have any problems just comment and keep a check.
If you liked my post, feel free to subscribe to my rss feeds
BlogoSquare